Flex Layout and MXML Tutorial
By · CommentsYou’ll want to start by getting the hang of using MXML (XML like file format for describing a Flex Application). Basically Flex tried to make it easier on us and the designers by letting us use XML to describe the layout of an application. Once you get the hang of it, it makes mocking up a GUI (Graphical User Interface) really fast.
You’ll notice that you’re new application has one file, Starting.mxml. This is where everything starts. Inside your Starting.mxml file, you’ll notice that there is an application tag. Ie <s:Application … > … </s:Application>. Everything that you put into this application will go between those two tags. The application will use namespaces to pull in all the things you could need, in this case fx, s, and mx. fx and s are new with Flex 4. They define the new libraries, tags, and components you will be useing. mx defines the old flex 3 components that you can use as well. Finally you’ll notice two more attributes, minWidth=”1024″ minHeight=”768″ which simply define the minimum size of your application.
Learning Flex 4 Tutorials
By · CommentsAlright Eric and Ryan these are for you. I’m going to walk you through making a flex application and hopefully by the time you finish you’ll have a good idea of how to program in flex and actionscript.
- Flash Builder (Getting Started)
- At the time of this writing Flash Builder is in it’s second beta. It can be downloaded here. You can obtain a key (as a student) here for Flex Builder, which you use here for Flash Builder.
- Note that you can get the plugin for eclipse or you can get the standalone. Either one will work, and since you probably won’t be doing too much Java Development it might be better to just get the standalone.
- Once you’ve downloaded, installed, and registered, start by making a new flex 4 application.
- Make sure you are in the Flash Perspective.
- Window -> Open Perspective -> Flash
- Create a new Flash Project File -> New -> Flex Project.
- Name it Starting. Make sure the Application type is Web, and that None/Other is specified for the server technology.
- Click Finish
- At the time of this writing Flash Builder is in it’s second beta. It can be downloaded here. You can obtain a key (as a student) here for Flex Builder, which you use here for Flash Builder.
- Flex Layout and MXML
- Flex 4 Skinning
- Binding and Event Programming
- Project Structure
- Server Side Programming for Flex
- Client Side Programming for Flex
- Documenting and Testing
Helpful Links:
Flex Documentation -> Put this link on your bookmark bar. If you ever want to know how to do something, or which tag to use, go here first. Well, that and google.
Wix Flash Web Site
By · CommentsI was made aware of a easy to set up and deploy flash based website creation and hosting tool, wix.com. I visited it and sure enough, within a few moments I had a simple fictional modeling website up. You can visit it at http://wix.murphysean.com or at the actual site http://www.wix.com/murfmiser/murfmodeling.
It does have quite a selection of templates to get you started, and is really easy to go through. I wouldn’t recommend it for the veteran web developer, but for those that want a nice face to a photo portfolio or something, it’s not a bad way to go.
Using HTML to form Dynamic Excel Reports
By · CommentsWell, recently I was asked to develop a excel report for a small web application we use at work. The request involved light formatting and layout, and I wondered to myself how I would go about doing this with csv (comma seperated values). I stumbled upon a hint that said you can have excel directly open html content and parse it out into a document. And sure enough I wrote up a simple html page with a table, some css, and it opened up and looked great in excel. All you have to do is make sure the content type in your http response is one of the following:
- application/vnd.ms-excel
- application/x-msexcel
- application/ms-excel
- application/msexcel
- application/x-excel
The problem I faced was that I needed the tables to be side by side in excel, and unfortunately excel doesn’t support side by side tables, it will just slap them one after another down the excel document. So you have to mix all the tables you want side by side dynamically. Which is very unfortunate.
CS330 Basic Scheme
By · CommentsI’m taking CS330 at BYU from Proffessor Bryan Morse. Our first assignment is to examine the basic functionality of Scheme. I’m using the Dr. Scheme IDE from PLT-Scheme. Unfortunatly my pretty-printer doesn’t handle scheme.
Here is the requirement page.
Here is my solution file.
I found this assignment pretty easy, however I did learn a few new scheme test functions that come in pretty handy for unit testing type code.